1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to an interactive system and method for obtaining and displaying images as wallpaper or screen saver images on the desktop of a personal computer or similar environment. The invention is also directed to an interactive marketing, sales, and purchasing system and method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common for personal computers to include a provision for displaying a decorative image on the computer desktop. In a Windows®-based or MacIntosh®-based operating system, the desktop is the portion of the display that serves as a background. Decorative images that are displayed on the desktop are known as wallpaper, and the wallpaper image normally remains present in the background of the display during use of the computer. The various icons, task bars, and windows of the operating system or applications are displayed over this background. The placement of wallpaper images on the background serves to provide a decorative touch to the overall computer display, and gives the computer user the opportunity to personalize the desktop display of his or her computer. Wallpaper images are usually included as part of the computer's operating system, or are added later by the user with the addition of a designated wallpaper program or other software, or by downloading images from various sources on the Internet, such as web pages, commercial sites, or the like. Often wallpaper images are acquired based upon a particular user's personal interests or pursuits.
Similarly to wallpaper, screen savers may also incorporate images such as photographs, artwork or the like. Screen savers are programs that are generally set to become operative after a prescribed time period has passed since the most recent input to a personal computer by a user. The screen saver program activates based upon an assumption that the user is no longer using the computer. The purpose of the screen saver is to prevent ghost images from appearing on the cathode ray tube of the computer monitor as a result of having the same image displayed constantly over extended periods of time. By cycling through several alternative images or by introducing animated elements, or the like, screen savers prevent this “bum in” of a particular image. Thus, screen savers are popular, and as described above with respect to wallpaper, computer users often like to personalize their screen saver images by selecting pictures, artwork or other images that are they find personally pleasing.
Prior art wallpaper and screen saver programs are usually loaded onto a personal computer from a CD-Rom or floppy disk. For example, Second Nature Software, Inc., (www.secondnature.com) produces a wallpaper and screen saver program for Windows® and MacIntosh® systems which is entitled “Slideshow”, and which is available on floppy disk. The wallpaper program includes a plurality of images based upon a particular theme or the work of a particular artist, and these images may be cycled through manually by the user, or on an automated basis by the program. The program also enables the user to download jpeg, bitmap, or other images using a separate web browser program, and incorporate these downloaded images into the image set to be displayed as wallpaper. A plurality of images may be stored as an image set or display set, and the program may be directed to cycle through the wallpaper images in the display set on a daily, hourly, or other basis. However, the user must manually seek out and download the additional images using a separate web browser program, and then manually add the new images to the image set for use in the wallpaper program.